The 49ers surprised observers last Thursday night when they selected Illinois receiver A.J. Jenkins with the 30th overall pick in the 2012 NFL Draft. But now we know that if the Niners hadn’t snagged Jenkins at No. 30, the Rams probably would have taken him at No. 33.

Yahoo! Sports’ Michael Silver was actually in the war room with Jeff Fisher and Les Snead in St. Louis last weekend and observed the Rams’ 2012 draft. He was on 101 ESPN sports radio in St. Louis today and filled hosts Randy Karraker, D’Marco Farr and Chris Duncan in on the Rams’ draft strategy when it came to selecting a receiver.

In response to whether or not he knew the Rams would take Appalachian State receiver Brian Quick with the 33rd overall pick, Silver responded:

“Yeah, I sort of knew their thinking on the receiver position. And I think the thinking was this: Blackmon at No. 6, we love it. We’re not going to trade up to do it but we love it at No. 6. If we don’t get him we pretty much have to get one of the five that we worked out, and I think the order was Blackmon first, with Quick and Jenkins right there with him. Then it went down to (Michael) Floyd or (Kendall) Wright after that. Once the four were gone and Quick was left, they did not want to mess around.”

It’s interesting that, at least according to Silver, the Rams had Quick and Jenkins rated ahead of Floyd and Wright because many people speculated that St. Louis would have taken Floyd at No. 14 had Arizona not selected him at No. 13. But that was never the case. The Rams had Trent Richardson ranked first, Blackmon ranked second and LSU defensive tackle Michael Brockers ranked third. Brockers, whom Silver believes the Rams would have taken at No. 6 even if they hadn’t traded down, ultimately went to St. Louis at No. 14.

Getting back to Jenkins, it’s always interesting to hear about how things played out in teams’ war rooms after the fact. I’m sure plenty of Niners fans thought Jenkins was a reach at No. 30 but there’s a strong possibility that the Rams would have taken him at No. 33, so clearly the Illinois’ receiver was ranked higher on teams’ draft boards than people thought.

This is just one more example of how far off the media and fans are when it comes to projecting what teams are thinking on draft night.